Here is an excellent illustration of why we need as a field to come together on what an eating disorder is, and what it is not. The episode below, part of a series I otherwise adore , treats "eating disorder" as a term we can all just interpret. You can take a range of intelligent, insightful people and ask them their opinion about eating disorders - in this case it is African-Americans - and they all have things to say just as they do about tipping and camping. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion and get to define the term.

Although the demographic is different than the usual, the opinions here are standard issue: wanting to be thin, identity, culture, desire for control, emotional solace. A set of behaviors, choices. There's a range of views here but not one describes eating disorders as a mental illness or biological in nature -- or with a significant genetic predisposition --or treatable, which I would argue are the most important facts.

Just the topic tells us so much. If the question was "do Black folk have diabetes?" there'd be a different frame here because we'd be talking about a disease that everyone recognizes for what it is. Nobody would be riffing on autoimmune theories and endocrinology - they'd talk about their sister who had it and their uncle who lost his toe from it. If the topic was cancer no one would even be asking the question: it wouldn't be seen as cultural.

We need clear terms and a clear view of what an eating disorder is so people will stop thinking of eating disorders as something everyone is an expert on, and start thinking of them as something people -- including black people -- not only have but recover from.